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Scepter of Carwell
Wrought of deep, rich biinwood and green wildstone, this scepter is a tribute to seamless woodcrafting. It is set in the form of a large biinwood tree, the craggy trunk of the tree forming the haft of it, with seven articulated roots emerging for about two inches before interweaving once more, as if they encircled a sphere of air. They partially enclose a spherical wildstone gem the size of a large marble, into which has been engraved a large biinwood tree, the insignia of the House of Carwel. The branches, while articulate and graceful, keep fairly close to the main trunk, weaving in and out of each other and creating an airy, stretched sphere on the top of the trunk. At the end of each branch are dozens of tiny wildstones, crafted to look like elliptical biinwood leaves and flawlessly attached. During the formation of Fastheld, Talus Kahar I decided to elevate six major Houses from the nobility of the time, giving them Crown sanction within his new city-state. For the other houses, they had three options: find a major House that would incorporate the minor house into its ranks, accept citizenship in the form of becoming freelanders, or don't accept citizenship at all, and be forced to fend for oneself outside of Fastheld. The major Houses pulled out the most promising and useful of the minor houses and incorporated them, but dozens of minor houses were left with a choice between the latter options. House Carwel, a house known for its quality woodworkers and carpenters, were faced with this very dilemma. They had once been a house of mild renown, but over centuries of badly-strategized marriages and a populace who were beginning to take more to stone structures than wood ones, the house was reduced to two keeps, a few farmers’ fields, and a small forest just northeast of what is now Wallwatch Wood. After months of deliberation, patriarch Follir Carwel decided to allow his house to be integrated as freelanders into Fastheld, but vowed that one day, his house would rise into power once more. He saved a large tapestry, the throne, the signet ring and the scepter of the Carwels for safekeeping until that day should arrive. Four generations of his kin kept these relics safe, but Follir's great-great-great grandson, Belal Carver, didn't seem to have quite as much faith in the family's noble prospects. Faced with the looming possibility of being committed to the Blades for his failure to pay an outstanding loan, he auctioned off the four items to the highest bidder, each one going to a different collector. The scepter has thusly been bought and sold by collectors of antiquities for centuries, little more than a footnote in the history of Fastheld and a conversation piece on someone's mantle. It was eventually located by a younger Captain Soravyn Zahir who – after realizing what he had stumbled across – had the historical item placed within the Museum of Artifacts within the Imperial Tribune. *Status: Owned by the Imperial Tribune Scepter of Carwell